Snow Measurement Field School 2025
January 6 - 10, 2025
Application Deadline 10.22.2024
Location: Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, Mammoth Lakes, California
Apply Here
Instructors to be announced soon!
The SINTER and CUAHSI Snow Measurement Field School will take place at SNARL (Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory) in California with support from NASA.
Participants must apply for this workshop. Applications will be reviewed by workshop organizers and instructors, and participants will be notified of their application status in November.
Overview:
Accurate snowpack property measurements are needed as ground truth for remotely sensed data, as input for hydrological models, as input to ecological models, and as data when making avalanche forecasts. This course provides hands-on training and experience with snow measurements, to help directly with snow measurement research objectives and for interpreting snow measurements collected by others.
The curriculum assumes little prior knowledge and experience on the part of the students, and begins with field and snow safety, then progresses to simple but critical snow measurements like depth, density, and snow water equivalent. Students are divided into teams and tasked with making field measurements that simulate what would be required in actual field campaigns. Daylight hours are spent almost entirely out in the snow, but in the evenings students work collectively to analyze and reflect on the day's measurements and listen to lectures about field measurements, sampling design, handling of data, and more advanced measurement topics.
Course Objectives:
This course will give fundamental training to students in making and analyzing snow measurements including depth, density, water equivalence, grain size and shape, stratigraphy, temperature and hardness. Students completing this course will be able to perform high-quality fieldwork and design studies making snowpack measurements.
By the end of the course, students should be able to do the following:
- Excavate and prepare a snow pit.
- Measure profiles of density, snow temperature, grain size, and hardness.
- Characterize stratigraphy and layering, snow surface roughness, and snow grain types.
- Use a Federal snow sampler, an avalanche probe, a Magnaprobe, and other snow measurement equipment.
- Design their own experiment for sampling snow based on specific scientific objectives.
Workshop Eligibility and Requirements:
The course is aimed at graduate students, post-docs, professionals and senior scientists, modelers and remote sensors that will make snow measurements as part of their research, or use snowpack data in their research. Priority will be given to graduate students and early career researchers but undergraduates may participate pending availability.
There are no required prerequisites, but students should be physically able to spend days outside being active in the snow.
Workshop Location and Cost:
This workshop will be hosted at SNARL (Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory) in Mammoth Lakes, California.
Housing is provided on-site. Participants will share rooms. Meals, lodging, and local transportation are included in the registration cost.
A limited number of grants are available for graduate students to help defray the cost of participation in the workshop.
Registration Cost:
- CUAHSI Member Affiliated: Student $500
- Non-Member Student $550
- CUAHSI Member Affiliated Professional $700
- Non-Member Professional $750
CUAHSI offers member discounts! CUAHSI offers discounted registration fees for those affiliated with member instiutuions. Not sure if your university is a CUAHSI member? Check out our member list.
Participants must apply and be accepted to register and participate in this workshop.
COVID Considerations:
CUAHSI is closely monitoring guidance from the CDC and other health authorities to ensure a safe experience for all participants. CUAHSI expects that only fully vaccinated people will attend the Snow Measurement Field School.
If conditions and advice dictate, CUAHSI reserves the right to cancel or reschedule this workshop.